Conference: The Pain of Words: Narratives of Suffering in Slavic Cultures (May 9-11, 2008, Princeton)

[Olga Meerson]

What is wrong with masochistic fascination?

The only problem with it seems to be that for its proponents it works as 
an explanation of other things, while for its opponents, it explains 
nothing about the human soul but rather, is something that itself needs 
to be explained. The clasim that certain types of narratives resort to 
the discourse of pain BECAUSE people are prone to masochism is a bit 
tautological. The question is, why are we prone to masochism--the 
question, and not the answer. "The alleged masochistic fascination" 
presupposes that people who use the discourse of pain like pain in a 
sensual way--to put it bluntly, that Russians love to talk about 
suffering because they "love to suffer". But what if suffering is a 
means to an end and not an end in itself? Masoch does not address this 
problem, or at least his ideological followers do not care about it.

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:

> 29 October 2007
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> The Program Committee wrote:
>
>> We especially encourage submissions that approach concrete textual or
>> ethnographic materials in a theoretically informed way, without 
>> reiterating
>> the alleged masochistic fascination of Slavic cultures with pain and
>> suffering.
>>
>
> I have some questions:
>
> 1) What "alleged masochistic fascination" are we referring to here?
> 2) What is wrong with "masochistic fascination?"
> 3) What is wrong with masochism generally?
> 4) How is it even possible to study "pain" in the Slavic cultural 
> context without at least mentioning masochism?
> 5) Why would there be any problem with studying "masochistic 
> fascination" in a "theoretically informed way?"  Are only certain 
> theories permitted?
> 6) Why would one want to pre-censor the content of an upcoming 
> conference?
>
> With regards to the list,
>
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
> Emeritus Professor of Russian
> University of California, Davis
>
>
>
> Elena Gapova wrote:
>
>> Conference: The Pain of Words: Narratives of Suffering in Slavic 
>> Cultures
>> (May 9-11, 2007, Princeton)
>> Call for Conference Papers
>> THE PAIN OF WORDS:
>>
>> Narratives of Suffering in Slavic Cultures
>>
>> Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
>>
>> Princeton University
>>
>> May 9-11, 2008
>>
>>
>> Recent studies of emotions have pointed to a particular role of pain in
>> shaping identities and narratives. Regardless of their disciplinary
>> affiliations, scholars seem to agree that verbal expressions of pain 
>> first
>> of all draw attention to the suffering individual instead of 
>> describing the
>> actual experience of pain. Narratives of suffering provide the 
>> individual
>> with a powerful symbolic presence. They create emotionally charged
>> communities. Such narratives also lay the foundation for larger social,
>> political or moral claims.
>>
>> This link between pain, representation, and subjectivity is well 
>> documented
>> in Slavic cultures, where vivid depictions of suffering saturate 
>> popular and
>> elite cultures alike.  As the young Mayakovski put it, "I am with pain,
>> everywhere." However, this conference wants to move beyond the 
>> documenting
>> of omnipresence of pain in Slavic cultures. Instead, we want to 
>> explore how
>> social, linguistic, aesthetic, moral, gender, etc. conventions determine
>> specific contents of pain in different historical periods and different
>> geographical locations. What are the symbolic contexts in which 
>> experiences
>> of pain are recognized? To what extent do available cultural practices
>> constrain or encourage certain narrative versions of pain? What gets 
>> lost in
>> the process of translating traumatic experience into narratives of
>> suffering? How is the phenomenon of pain used to galvanize individual 
>> and
>> group identities, to justify social values, to motivate artistic 
>> projects
>> or, in some cases, to undermine (or generate) political movements? In 
>> short,
>> what are those discourses through which Slavic cultures acquire and 
>> express
>> their concepts of pain?
>>
>> We seek to address these problems by bringing together an 
>> interdisciplinary
>> and international group of people interested in exploring the value 
>> of pain
>> in such diverse fields as history, literature, film, music, 
>> performing arts,
>> everyday life, religion, ideology, politics, law, psychology, and 
>> history of
>> medicine. We invite papers to reflect upon the diverse vocabulary of
>> expressions of pain that have been constructed across Slavic space 
>> and time.
>> We are also interested in comparative studies that could place Slavic
>> narratives of suffering in larger cultural, historical, or geographical
>> contexts.
>>
>> We especially encourage submissions that approach concrete textual or
>> ethnographic materials in a theoretically informed way, without 
>> reiterating
>> the alleged masochistic fascination of Slavic cultures with pain and
>> suffering.
>>
>> Please send your abstract (300 words) and CV to 
>> <oushakin at princeton.edu> by
>> February 1, 2008.
>>
>> We might be able to offer a limited number of travel subsidies for 
>> several
>> foreign presenters.
>> Finalists will be contacted in the middle of February, 2008.
>>
>>
>>
>> Program committee:
>>
>>
>>
>> Serguei Oushakine (Princeton), Devin Fore (Princeton), Petre Petrov
>> (Princeton),
>>
>> Alexander Etkind (Cambridge/Princeton), Nancy Ries (Institute for 
>> Advanced
>> Study).
>>
>> http://slavic.princeton.edu/events/calendar/detail.php?ID=1628
>>
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